The Left has unwittingly enlisted a new soldier in the conservative media’s much ballyhooed yet illusory “War on Christmas”. This time, however, there actually seems to be a legitimate threat, although the target isn’t really in a position to mount any kind of defense. Many far left progressives, flush with the heady thrill of collecting political and celebrity scalps from the #MeToo movement, have now aimed their sights…on a holiday song.

Upon closer examination, it’s not really even a “Christmas” song in the traditional sense. There’s no religious angle, which is usually what gets conservatives’ hackles up when the Christmas holidays are supposedly under assault. The tune is actually played year round, but generally only during the holiday season because the action takes place on a dark and snowy night. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, performed by luminaries like Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald and Ray Charles, as well as by contemporary artists including Vanessa Williams and Idina Menzel, was originally written in 1944 by composer Frank Loesser. The song became an American standard with the popularity of the film Neptune’s Daughter in 1949. But this cheerful tune, beloved by millions for generations, has now become a source of ire to many progressive activists: an emblem of America’s sinister and ceaseless effort to keep women sexually submissive and allow our insidious rape culture that permits men to be as emotionally, physically and sexually abusive as they wish to flourish.

OK, fine. I’ll buy that.

But, if we’re going to go after this song as being “rapey” (not my word), because I really don’t think anybody except the highly attuned, and hypersensitive, analyze winter songs this much outside of academia, then I’d like to add a few more ditties to our Stay Woke Christmas Song Ban List. If “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is actually a deeply disturbing anthem romanticizing date rape, then we have a lot of other tunes to jettison. Let’s start with John Denver’s “Please, Daddy (Don’t Get Drunk on Christmas)” and it’s about exactly what you think it is. Don’t believe me? Look it up and play it. It’s horrible. And while we’re talking about rape, how about abolishing Jon Bon Jovi’s cover of Clarence Carter’s “Back Door Santa”, which I actually heard on a pop radio station during their annual 24/7 Christmas Music Bataan Death March. “They call me Back Door Santa…I make all the little girls happy while the boys are out to play. I ain’t like the old Saint Nick. He don’t come but once a year. I come runnin’ with my presents every time they call me dear.” Really??? And we all are supposed to admire this creep because he has a few stylish pay-what-you-can restaurants in New Jersey?

Why not take a closer eye at The Jackson Five singing “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” because nothing says Christmas quite like the thought of a child thinking he is watching his father get cuckolded by a man who sneaks into your house in the middle of the night. Even if you accept the premise of “Oh, it’s OK…it turns out to be his Dad at the end”, one is still left with the uncomfortable thought that this voyeuristic kid is spying on his parents being intimate. Where else is he skulking about at night? Hiding in the bedroom closet perhaps?

Let’s also acknowledge that “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”, the 1984 fundraising song by the “supergroup” Band Aid is, for all its good intentions, something that is truly awful. Especially when you consider that we’re all supposed to be more aware of issues like racism, poverty and famine in the 35 years since the song was released. Think about it. It’s a bunch of white British pop stars singing in turn about how nothing good happens in Africa. You know, that dreadful continent that Britain and most of Europe held in thrall for centuries? The one with Ethiopia, who can trace its Christian roots to 341 CE, more than three centuries before Britain did? So yes, Ethiopians know it’s Christmastime. But what does that matter to us? “...There won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime. The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life. Where nothing ever grows. No rain nor rivers flow…” Not to worry, though. You can assuage your colonial guilt by buying our record. It’s easy to spot. Just look for the one that has the enormous wreath, hobby-horses and cheerful English tots in bright period costumes with two starving black African children front and center. “Tonight thank God it’s them instead of you” sings the ever socially aware Bono of U2. Wow. Nostalgia sure isn’t what it used to be, is it?

Anybody want to take shot at Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” or any of the other numerous Christmas songs that glorify our self-centered, greedy and consumerist society? No? Tell you what. Let’s go full out and stop playing “The Coventry Carol”, written by an unknown composer in the 16th century, which is about the slaughter of Bethlehem’s first born sons by Herod as told in the New Testament. It’s 2019 after all. Infanticide and brutality against children is all the rage in America today. Just check out the southern border to see it in action.

Alright, if I’m completely honest, I really have no strong objections to any of these songs, including “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”. I suppose I’d be more inclined to understand the outrage against it if there weren’t so many other tunes we don’t give a second thought to that are far more deserving of our disdain during the holidays. We scrutinize and single out Loesser’s Academy award winning opus perhaps because it is merely a cause célèbre that our Woke Culture warriors bring to us every holiday season. Or maybe because we just look for things to irritate us. I would also be far more likely to take a hard look at the song, but any conversations we could have around issues such as sexuality, rape culture and society’s gender power structure collapsed when people simply wanted to ban the song…or change it to something more palatable to people on Facebook and Twitter. It’s easier to confront a song from the forties than confronting any real current issues that song might bring to the forefront. Out of hearing, out of mind.

As a final note, I can’t help but notice that when people on social media wail and moan that “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is still being allowed on the air, most if not all of them have also reserved a special place in hell for “All I Want for Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey. The hatred for that song seems to far exceed any of the bile reserved of late for “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, which is something I just don’t get.

So let’s ban the rape song…and Mariah Carey, too? This is why we can’t have nice things.